Last blog from our West Coast Trip

We’re making this last post from Seattle’s airport as we wait to board our flights.  Could get really, really sad right now, but we decided to finish with the same smiles that have accompanied us over the past 12 days with a Top 10+ list after the last blog.

From Portland, we moved on up to the Olympic Peninsula and stayed at Lake Crescent Lodge.  What can we say…more fantastic scenery, some hiking and ONE of us jumped in the water (again).  Coolest thing was star gazing out on the pier, although it didn’t get really dark until after 10:30 p.m.!  That was yesterday. Today, we took a 13-mile ride on the ferry into Seattle.  We checked out downtown and the waterfront before devouring some chowder at Pike’s Place Chowder.  The clam chowder and seafood bisque won best in category in the Rhode Island competition.  More sight-seeing and soaking in this area and finished off with a dee-lish dinner at a “fisherman to table” restaurant (octopus, oysters, Alaskan albacore-seared rare,  Chilean scallops and apple glazed pork).  Over dinner, we made a list of some of our favorite quotes from the trip, and we decided to share a few here…

Some of the most common sayings on the MVWCRT…
1.   “Dayum! Dayum!” (aka damn, damn)—often said by Debbie to Eric when he’s testing the fates on top of a high cliff
2.   “Mom, I love you but please turn over… you’re snoring again…” 

3.     “I’m going on a diet when we get home” (said by everyone after every meal)

4.     “Hold up, Debbie… Don’t run over those hippies again!” (this seriously happened more than once…)

5.     “Do they have martinis here?” “I wish I had a box fan” (said by Michael everywhere)

6.     “If I’m not back in two hours, call the park rangers” (said by Eric almost every day)

7.     “This hill is a four-stopper” (said by Mom in gauging the number of stops needed to make it up the San Francisco hills)

8.     “I could totally live here” (said by Michael & Eric in San Francisco, Portland and Seattle)

9.      “Wait, guys. I need to grab my bathing suit” (said by Eric before ANY excursion)

10. “I need a tissue. Don’t worry, guys. It’s just my allergies. I’m not sick.” (said by Eric before everyone else got sick from his “allergies”)

11. “I need to work on the blog tonight… Do we have service here (often asked when in the middle of an isolated national park)” (said by Mom every single night in order to assure we were being faithful to any fans/followers)

Overall, our expectations were exceeded and our bonds strengthened. We shared many laughs, magical moments and runny noises. We are all looking forward to our sequel, whenever and wherever that may be.

Portlandia

Fun in Portland

We had the coolest hotel ever…Michael’s pick.  The city of Portland bought the Kennedy Elementary School when the school closed down and was going to be destroyed.  The business group, McMenamins, bought the building later and made it into a hotel named after the school--it looked and felt like my own elementary school.  The old classrooms were sectioned off into 2 hotel rooms.  I’m not sure which subject wing we were in, but we were put in the broom and basket closet…no comments please.  One thing this hotel had that my school did not was 6 BARS, seriously.  We decided to do a pub crawl in our hotel.  We really did have a blast making the “rounds”.  Oregon is extremely proud of their brews and had a very uniquely cool selection.  We were somehow able to eat dinner after the venture and get into the 10’ X 30’ “soaking tub” (Jacuzzi).  We even made it back to the broom closet, but the next morning made us all realize the consequences of that type of fun.  (I’d do it again, though!)

Cruised several Portland districts and did general sight-seeing the next day.  I felt like the day was an overall success when the boys returned from a quick appetizer at a wine bar with the suggestion of one more activity.  We had dinner on a floating restaurant over the Columbia River.  The Deck was a casual, open-air café with some good food and a fun view of tons of sailboats. 

Like I said, we had fun in Portland.

by Mom

Crater Lake

Took us a while, but we finally made it to Oregon!

I thought the redwoods had left me in awe and speechless.  As I reached the point that I could take in my first glimpse of Crater Lake….